Victor Ponta

Victor Ponta (20 September 1972-) was Prime Minister of Romania from 7 May 2012 to 22 June 2015 (succeeding Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and preceding Gabriel Oprea), from 9 to 29 July 2015 (interrupting Oprea's terms), and from 10 August to 5 November 2015 (succeeding Oprea and preceding Sorin Cimpeanu). Ponta was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Romania.

Biography
Victor Ponta was born in Bucharest, Romania on 20 September 1972 to a father of Italian descent and a mother of Aromanian descent. He worked as a prosecutor before becoming involved in Social Liberal Union (until 2014) and Social Democratic Party of Romania (from 2014) politics; he was elected as a deputy for Gorj County in 2004. He served as Minister of Parliamentary Relations from 2008 to 2009, and he went on to serve as President of the PSD from 2010 to 2015. In 2012, he led his party to victory in the local elections, despite being embroiled in controversy due to allegations that he plagiarized his doctoral thesis. He went on to serve as Prime Minister from 2012 to 2015, bolstered by a parliamentary victory. He lost the November 2014 presidential election to Klaus Iohannis, and, in the wake of the Colectiv nightclub fire, he lost the support of the Liberal Reformist Party of Romania and the Conservative Party of Romania, forcing him to resign. In 2019, after surviving a corruption investigation, he founded the liberal PRO Romania party and attempted a political comeback.